Rabbit food should be nutritious nuggets, not rabbit mix

Your rabbit relies on you to provide the right rabbit food for their health and wellbeing.

After the most important part of the diet which must be hay and mixed grasses, let's look at both the nutritious nuggets available and what is commonly known as rabbit mix, which is the muesli style food.

Rabbits are special because they have a very sensitive and different digestive system from our own, and other pets such as cats and dogs.

Care must be taken when feeding your rabbit. Tasty, nutritious nuggets containing fibre are a good supplement, for your rabbit food, as part of a balanced diet. In their natural environment wild rabbits eat mainly grass, other leafy plants and tree bark. This diet is very high in fibre and the rabbit's body has evolved to eat high fibre foods. This means that foods high in sugar, carbohydrates or starch are not good for your own rabbit.

Nuggets should be naturally high in fibre and contain the essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals as well as a prebiotic for the digestive system that rabbits need for health and wellbeing.

Check on the packet to see if the nuggets you're feeding your rabbit contain these essentials.

Rabbits belong to a group of pets which are sometimes known as 'Fibrevores'. Other similar pets include guinea pigs and chinchillas. These animals have a sensitive digestive system that needs lots of fibre. It is therefore important that you give your rabbit fibre nuggets, along with fresh hay and certain fresh vegetables. Rabbit mix, or the muesli style foods may look very nice to us but they are not so good for your rabbit.

When feeding rabbit mix, it encourages selective feeding insofar that the rabbit only eats the bits they like, leaves the rest and does not get a balanced diet.

The rabbit misses out on essential nutrients and you waste your money on the rabbit mix food that you throw away. Muesli style foods can contain sugary and starchy ingredients which are bad for the rabbit's health and it is low in fibre!

This can be seen simply by observing a rabbit's health after feeding them rabbit mix. I have seen rabbits suffer from diarrhoea and other digestive aliments, which can be soon corrected by feeding the proper diet.